Reviews by Scent-e-mental

I was expecting so much more from Safari. It to me is a reasonably non-descript warmish fougere, with little character. I bought a bottle for a friend who owned it previously and in his opinion it is significantly weaker than it was in the 90's. I have any number of fragances that are superior and given the price, it is not worth the money (luckily I paid less than $50 Au - $42 US for the 4.2 Oz). It has been likened to YSL Jazz by some people, but Jazz is in every way a superior scent. For a real Man's fragrance I would opt for Montana parfum d'homme, Jazz or any number of others.

I bought a bottle of this about 25 years ago, when it was still made by Yardley. Recently I had the opportunity to buy another bottle. It is not very common here in Australia, though from what I can see, it is quite common and cheap to get in England. To me this is a great budget fragrance, that is well worth the low price. Is is somewhat like Aramis mixed with a fougere like Worth homme, with a little powderiness thrown in for good measure. It is warm, rich and although it may not be anything ground-breaking, is still worth owning. The projection is good as is the longevity.

This is an amazing fragrance. The grapefruit is balanced with the cedar perfectly. The rosemary adds an peppery aromatic aspect and gives it this a little something missing from so many sports fragrances. I tried this about half a dozen times for about 6 months before buying it: I couldn't believe it was as good as it is. It also lasts surprisingly well.

This is a pretty decent musk and tobacco fragrance. I am not sure why this is called Whisky, I really do not see the connection with the notes. This is not as strong as something like Jovan Musk, but more robust than Royal Copenhagen Musk. It starts off pretty strong and IMHO is best after an hour or so as the notes can tend to be a tad strong (as my wife dutifully informed me). For the price it is well worth the money.

I got this on a recent trip to Oklahoma, where it was 75% off regular price. I thought at that price (just over $7) it is worth buying blind. I am not sure what oak is supposed to smell like, but here are my impressions of the fragrance: It does not strike me as particularly woody, or at least it is not as overtly woody as the name might suggest. The fragrance starts off with an interesting synthetic sweet/sour accord which is not altogether unpleasant, but does not make me imagine oak trees brimming with acorns. No particular notes stand out. Citrus, green notes and sweetness really predominate to my nose at the start. As it progresses, there is an overall sweet, spicy vibe to this rather short-lived fragrance, which is nice enough, but I can hardly imagine this knocking anybody's socks off. The bottle, which kinda makes it look like a Comme d' Garçon fragrance, is the best thing about this. Even so, I give it a thumbs up as it is cheap enough, not unpleasant and not unbalanced.

"Melony Felony"
This is truly an apalling fragrance. Why Luca Turin raves about it is beyond me and Beyond Paradise is beyond redemption.

The melony start passes quickly to reveal a chemical (maybe nail-polish remover) like note. The fruit is harmonised with the other notes exactly the same way that the after-taste of toothpaste harmonises with a glass of tropical fruit juice. I actually felt nauseous trying to detect the notes in it.

We are never actually told what fruit Adam and Eve ate in Eden, but I bet it wasn't anything contained in this fragrance!

This is a masculine fragrance NOT a feminine. It is a long lasting well-projecting scent that seems like it should have vanilla listed as a note. It is a sweet oriental and there is a definite warm,camphorous aspect to it. It reminds me of Silver Scent by Jacques Bogart.

I had this but gave it away and sometime after that, when I started to develop an interest in male floral fragrances, I rebought it. Thankfully I managed to find 100mll of it for $9.00. What really stands out for me is the neroli.

I paid $8 for 3.3 oz of this fragrance and in my opinion that is $7.99 too much. It is without a shadow of a doubt the worst cologne I have ever purchased (I did so blind). It is so synthetic and thin, it makes ck Be smell animalistic by comparison. I put three good sprays on one forearm to smell it, but all I got was some vague chemical vapours. So I tried the other arm, three sprays, still nothing. I have used antibacterial gel that has more character and presence. I would not recommend this one at all (unless you want to use it as a cleaning solvent). Surprisingly, the nose who created his fragrance also created TL (Ted Lapidus) pour Lui and Bogart pour Homme.

I got this for my wife, but she didn't want it, so I kept it to use as a room spray at work (after all I paid only $10 for 100ml). I realised after spraying it that this really is not a feminine fragrance at all, it is at the very least unisex and more probably masculine...so I kept it for myself (and went back to get a second bottle from the sale table where I got the first). The tea and lavender combine to make a wonderful refreshing fragrance that is like a weird spin off from a fougere. I think it would be great layered with some other fragrances.

I have wanted this one for a while and finally got it recently. The combination of notes is spot on: it is sweet without being cloying and the vanilla has more of a incensy feel than a candy- sweet one. This is the way vanilla should be. I agree with Pollux that there is a similarity with Bogart pour Homme, though TL is more subtle and a tad more woody.

I agree fully with saripatates: this bears a strong resemblance to Yatagan, though I think that it has similarities with Polo Green too. Imagine mixing 1 part Polo to 1 part Yatagan to 1 part ethanol: this comes close to Barbier des Isles. It is much more subdued than Yatagan and a worthy addition to my wardrobe.

This is a very potent oriental fragrance and on the edge of being overly sweet and cloying. But I like it. The wood, vanilla and floral notes are longlasting and as has been mentioned already, mean it is a fairly linear scent. When it opens, there is a camphorous aspect provided by the lavender, but this subsides to leave the super-strong vanilla to scream for a long time.

I got this for fathers' day and am very pleased with it! As others have noted, it is animalistic and definitely a tobacco fragrance. Imagine mixing Cigar by Remy Latour and Kouros and then adding a sharp note, you would have an approximation of Vermeil's opening. As these are two of my favourite fragrances, I love this one.

Vermeil is as Shamu1 said 'Forceful', but it's intensity does drop of quite quickly (as Bigsly noted) and after 3 hours I am struggling to detect it. Perhaps as some have noted it's olfactory fatigue. This can be found very cheaply online (around $22 for 100mL) and is a great deal. I would give it 8/10. It only loses points because of its longevity.

I gave this a thumbs up only because there's no thumbs diagonal icon. The fragrance starts off with a bizarre bubblegum- meets- nail poish- remover accord (or is it discord?). Afterwards it settles down into a fairly generic woody spicy fragrance with a touch of sweetness. It actually reminds me somewhat of Kenneth Cole Signature.

Even though my favourite type of fragrances are powerhouses, I love this one. It has an unusual accord to it that to me puts it somewhere between old school fragrances like Old Spice and Paul Sebastian and fougeres. It is smooth and crisp yet by no means insipid.

I tried this on my way home from work one day - it was on sale for around $20, At first I thought "what is this" its start is chaotic and as shamu1 notes there are fruity notes which are not indicated in the pyramid. The opening smells a bit like someone's pet spidermonkey ate too much fruit and then vomited it up. The spices add a jarring aspect to the fruit and make it smell a bit "off", thankfully this effect is fleeting. The drydown is where this is best. I don't have any other fragrance which changes as much from start to end. To me the spicy, woody drydown is worth waiting for and to me has a soapiness to it which is reminiscent of some of my favourite powerhouse fragrances, though this is no powerhouse.

I am a huge fan of this fragrance, it is both dirty and sweet in its opening: like a dark latrine pit, or perhaps some freakish pitcher plant, into which someone has poured a sack of lime and into which several small animals may have fallen to their deaths. It also reminds me of the sweet smell of a recently dead animal decaying in the hot sun, which has then been covered in spice and added to a bowl of pot pouri. Throughout its early life, there is a dirtiness which is slightly veiled by a sweet spiciness. There is also at the same time, a bitter aspect - almost like cloves are present (even though no cloves are listed as ingredients).

After about an hour (or slightly longer or shorter depending on whether your watch has gone all floppy and has ants crawling all over it) this fragrance has toned down a little, but is still dark and brooding.

There is a similarity with Witness by Jacques Bogart and Zino Davidoff, but it is only slight. This fragrance has excellent sillage and longevity and would eat the aforementioned fragrances for breakfast (and given that the bottle is capped by a massive pair of lips, that's hardly surprising).

This opens with a very rich, sweet/ spicy blast - which is almost mouth watering. Sweet spices (ginger mainly) citrus, woody notes and musk work together to produce a fragrance which is warm and comfortable. It is not, as far as I am concerned, a "silver scent". It is too warm and not crisp enough. After 5 minutes the fragrance has gone through a lot of change and the strength has subsided markedly. The longevity is fair (maybe 4 -5hours). It is one of those scents which weakens dramatically after the first few minutes, but then slows down its descent to olfactory obscurity and is hanging around (close to the skin) for quite some time.

This is not so bad. The packaging is really unique - the thick blue fluid trapped between the inner and outer walls of the bottle makes it seem somewhat like a lava lamp. The actual frangrance, however, doesn't really match the packaging. I expected an aquatic, generic smelling fragrance, but was pleasantly surprised. To me this is a light woody fragrance with floral notes and patchouli. The start is sweet and almost camphorous (this is probably the effects of the lavender). The cypress and cedar remind me a little of Oxygene by Lanvin (A favourite of mine). The patchouli is not overpowering and works well with the other earthy ingredients to balance the sweetness. When the top notes have subsided it is more clearly floral. The fragrance in not very long-lived, which is a pity.

I bought this as a bit of a joke as it was only $10 Australian (around $9 US). I remembered reading negative reviews about this smelling like body odour, but I bought it undeterred (hey I like Kouros and Yatagan so I was prepared for anything). When I tried it I was pleasantly surprised. It is a nice spicy fragrance (I thought cinnamon, but apparently its cummin). There is woodiness behind it all and I do not detect the purported sweaty rockstar note. As it dries down it is much cleaner than I had imagined it would be. Towards the end of its life it has a "fresh linen' accord (at least on my skin).- it's not the sweaty, leathery, animalistic fragrance I had imagined.

I found a vintage bottle of this at a school fair and paid the princely sum of 20 cents for it. The bottle is 3/4 full. Even though it is only after shave strength it is still reasonably potent. The subtle woodiness and slight citric start make this a very comfortable fragrance.

I love this fragrance - it is really unlike anything else I own. There is the definite woodiness as with many of the fragrances I like, however, the herbaceous notes in this one make it very different. To me it has an almost culinary feel to it, like wafts of cooking coming from a kitchen or perhaps a herb garden on a warm spring day. I have only been able to locate a EDC, but it is still quite strong. An EDT would be amazing.

I bought this blind and cheaply (around $17 US for 75mL) and to be frank didn't expect too much from it. The start is quite pleasant - I like the spiciness, though I like the spices in the original Intimately Beckham more. The sweetness in this one is akin to coconut, at least to my nose. I look at the list of purported notes and (metaphorically) shrug my shoulders: I don't detect the citrus, and I was almost sure there was vanilla (but apparently not). It doesn't project far from the body and after a few minutes of the initial blast, it settles into a slightly spicy sweetness, which lasts for a reasonable amount of time. Nice, but not brilliant.

This is a nice enough warm fragrance, which has similarities with Xeryus Rouge, but without the staying power (about 2 to 3 hours) and sweetness. It is a budget fragrance and so the lack of longevity is to be expected. It is hard to pick the exact constituents, but I would take a stab at it and guess that there is pepper of some sort, musk and some other spices (possibly cinnamon).

The eucalyptus in this is balanced well with the incense and to me is not overly strong: which is good because strong eucalyptus can be nauseating. It has a bit of a similar vibe to me as B*Men.

The differences between B*men and Body Kouros are that the B*Men has a definite licorice note which stands out as does the vetiver.On the other hand, Body Kouros is, on the whole, sweeter and to me has a sweet almost marzipan-like note.

Body Kouros seems much more complex than the few notes listed would suggest.

The overall effect of the spices and woods, coupled with the sweeter notes give a magnificent, rich, long lasting olfactory feast.